A standard ring-spinning or -twisting machine has a spindle bank on which a plurality of upright spindles arranged in a row are rotatable. These spindles normally carry sleeves on which respective rovings are wound to form the desired yarn packages. The yarns or rovings run over ring guides or the like to the respective spindles.
Once a package is complete, the respective guide drops down to a level below the sleeve and winds several turns of the roving around a lower reserve surface on the respective spindle. When the sleeve is subsequently doffed, the roving breaks, leaving the leading end of the incoming roving wound around the lower reserve surface of the spindle. Then a new spindle is set in place and the winding operation starts again with the roving caught on the lower reserve surface being caught on the new sleeve and wound up, repeating the cycle.
Clearly a problem with this system is that the reserve surface quickly gets fouled with the roving, since several turns are added each time the sleeve is changed. These reserve surfaces must be cleared periodically.
Accordingly machines have been proposed in European patent application 251,397 filed based on an Italian priority of Jun. 29, 1988 by S. Sartoni et al and U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,168 of Kellet that have a carriage that moves past the spindles and that carries equipment for clearing the reserve surfaces. This equipment includes a motorized scraper and a vacuum arrangement. In general such a system is quite complex and adds considerably to the cost of the apparatus.
Another system is described in Japanese patent 61-83332 which has a traveling vacuum machine that can move along the row of spindles to vacuum up roving fragments and lint from the service areas to each side of the machine. Like the other two above-described cleaning apparatuses, this system has the disadvantage that it gets in the way of the standard doffing and donning equipment. Its lower guide rail lies on the front or outside of the row of spindles, just where the doffing/donning equipment must work.
In copending and commonly owned patent application Ser. No. 07/962,142 filed Oct. 16, 1992 an apparatus for clearing roving wound on the reserve surfaces has a guide rail extending longitudinally along a back side of the beam adjacent the spindles, a carriage displaceable along the rail past the spindles, and a drive including a longitudinally extending drive element secured to the carriage for displacing same longitudinally along the rail past the spindles. A roving-cutting element is fixed on the carriage engageable immediately adjacent the spindles between the respective lower reserve surfaces and sleeves and a roving-clearing element is fixed on the carriage below the cutting element and engageable immediately adjacent the lower reserve surfaces of the spindles. This device does not clear the service area of the stripped-off roving.